Life Skills

Joseline Reyes had the scoop on the hottest day of the year so far at her school. She had two scoops, in fact. "I've got cookies 'n cream. It's my favorite," the 15-year-old said as she relaxed in the Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor that sits in the middle of a Glendale school's grounds. Joseline, of Van Nuys, attends summer school classes at Tobinworld, a 300-student campus for autistic and emotionally disturbed youngsters. Besides being a popular place on a hot day, the Baskin-Robbins store is a centerpiece of the school's curriculum.

There isn't an inch of space between 11-year-old Jennifer Suarez and her mother, Jenny, as they cuddle on the couch at the Woodcraft Ranger Afterschool Club of San Miguel Elementary School. Sitting hip to hip, their hands clasp naturally at times; other times Jennifer will cling to her mother's arm. They are always bantering, with warm smiles and laughter. Although proud of the strong mother-and-daughter tie, Mrs. Suarez worries that Jennifer might be too attached to her. So she decided to send both Jennifer and her 8-year-old sister, Solangie, to the Woodcraft Rangers summer camp at Big Bear last summer.

Saying that libraries should provide access to the world, state Librarian Kevin Starr on Tuesday joined other state and local officials in dedicating the California Conservation Corps' new Anacapa Library. Located at the corps' center at Camarillo State Hospital, the library is part of a pilot project funded by a $30,000 grant from the federal Library Services and Construction Act.

Joseline Reyes had the scoop on the hottest day of the year so far at her school. She had two scoops, in fact. "I've got cookies 'n cream. It's my favorite," the 15-year-old said as she relaxed in the Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor that sits in the middle of a Glendale school's grounds. Joseline, of Van Nuys, attends summer school classes at Tobinworld, a 300-student campus for autistic and emotionally disturbed youngsters. Besides being a popular place on a hot day, the Baskin-Robbins store is a centerpiece of the school's curriculum.

January 2, 2007 | Dinah Lenney, DINAH LENNEY plays nurse Shirley on "ER" and is the author of "Bigger Than Life: A Murder, A Memoir," to be published in March.

MY DAUGHTER, Eliza, goes to the magnet at Marshall High School in Los Feliz, where she is enrolled in four APs, French 3 and Cooking (which satisfies her technical art requirement). According to Eliza, according to her like-minded peers, according to her college counselor, she has no choice but to take every Advanced Placement course she can if she wants to compete for a spot in selective colleges across the country, the top UCs included.

July 17, 1992 | BARBARA BRONSON GRAY, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Barbara Bronson Gray is a regular contributor to Valley Life

Single, with a 2-year-old son, Anna Guillen came to Canoga Park last year to visit her mother--and she decided not to return to Mexico City. She spoke no English and couldn't find a job here. But Guillen enrolled in a literacy course run by BASE (Basic Adult Spanish Education), a nonprofit organization started five years ago to teach Latinos basic Spanish and English literacy. Now she works at the nearby El Pollo Loco, taking orders.

The line of choppers slices through the stillness of the morning sky. John Simmons, paratrooper, demolition specialist, hangs in the doorway. The signal comes, and he steps over the edge--and into the waiting jungles of Vietnam below. It is September, 1966. Simmons is 22. It is his first jump in country. Simmons promptly hits the ground and fractures both ankles. Taken to a medi-vac hospital, he is given morphine for the pain. "And that was the beginning of the addiction for me," he says.

June 4, 2000 | JASON WOMACK, Jason Womack lives in Ojai and teaches social studies at Nordhoff High School. You can reach him at www.jasonwomack.com

Don't just sit there, learn something. Summer is almost here, and for many students (of all ages) this means time to tune out. How can you take advantage of this time to learn more about things you want to understand? For 10 weeks during the summer, some of you will put your education on hold. Instead, what if you took advantage of the school-less, teacher-less days to discover more about what genuinely interests you?

Families Forward has received a $5,000 grant from the Pacific Life Foundation to fund a Career Education Program. In 1998, Pacific Life supported planning efforts for the program, which will help homeless families acquire job and life skills for long-term self-sufficiency. . Information: (949) 552-2727.

Re "Learning life skills the LAUSD way," Opinion, Jan. 2 I am surprised by Dinah Lenney's attitude in her opinion piece about health education in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Yes, students do have sex education in the fourth and seventh grades, along with instruction in the academic curricula. Therefore, are we to assume that students know everything there is to know about English and math by the end of the seventh grade? A continuum of K-12 health education and a demanding math-science curriculum throughout is required if we expect to have a healthy population and to prepare the next generation of healthcare professionals.

The NBA player was only 2 inches tall, but he left quite an impression on Memphis Grizzlies guard Mike Conley. Conley was playing the popular video game NBA2K9 when a virtual Rajon Rondo appeared to go in for a layup. Instead, he pushed back off his left foot, deftly landed on his right and then made a short jumper from the paint. So Conley added the move, dubbed the Euro Step, to his personal repertoire of shots last season. "I hadn't really thought about it until it happened in the video game," Conley said.

Police and state corrections officials searched Sunday for an inmate who walked away from a Pomona social services facility with her newborn baby boy while attending a mandated parenting program. Daphne Delorah Miner, 35, might have been headed to Los Angeles or Long Beach with her son, Sean Garner, who is less than 2 weeks old, according to the California Department of Corrections. Miner does not have parental rights to her child and is considered a fugitive, corrections officials said.

As part of an effort to get the city's homeless into permanent residences, Los Angeles officials announced Monday that the first loan from a special housing fund will go to help a San Fernando Valley nonprofit developer buy property for a 60-unit complex dubbed Glenoaks Gardens. L.A. Family Housing plans to put the $3 million toward development of studio apartments for single, chronically homeless adults. The site is currently occupied by a carwash. Many of the development's residents will have mental illnesses and require services that will be provided on site, such as employment counseling, life skills training and recovery programs.

Re "Learning life skills the LAUSD way," Opinion, Jan. 2 I am surprised by Dinah Lenney's attitude in her opinion piece about health education in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Yes, students do have sex education in the fourth and seventh grades, along with instruction in the academic curricula. Therefore, are we to assume that students know everything there is to know about English and math by the end of the seventh grade? A continuum of K-12 health education and a demanding math-science curriculum throughout is required if we expect to have a healthy population and to prepare the next generation of healthcare professionals.

January 2, 2007 | Dinah Lenney, DINAH LENNEY plays nurse Shirley on "ER" and is the author of "Bigger Than Life: A Murder, A Memoir," to be published in March.

MY DAUGHTER, Eliza, goes to the magnet at Marshall High School in Los Feliz, where she is enrolled in four APs, French 3 and Cooking (which satisfies her technical art requirement). According to Eliza, according to her like-minded peers, according to her college counselor, she has no choice but to take every Advanced Placement course she can if she wants to compete for a spot in selective colleges across the country, the top UCs included.

There's a fairy tale of sorts in the story of how a group of girls from a foster care program in Compton blossomed into beautiful debutantes at a Cinderella Ball. The tale begins with 29 teenage girls and young women who gathered over the course of three weeks last month at the Pepperdine University campus in Malibu. They were there to be schooled in the basics of life, to learn how to confront their worst fears about their childhood and to map their emancipation from the foster care system.

During 16 years of working with adult survivors of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, therapist Jill Raiguel learned that it wasn't enough to help her clients heal their wounds from the past. The clues that they needed more in order to move on came from such comments as: * "I let my husband take charge of everything. I don't trust my judgment or perceptions at all." * "I find it impossible to spend money on myself or even furnish my apartment. The idea sounds so indulgent."

Police and state corrections officials searched Sunday for an inmate who walked away from a Pomona social services facility with her newborn baby boy while attending a mandated parenting program. Daphne Delorah Miner, 35, might have been headed to Los Angeles or Long Beach with her son, Sean Garner, who is less than 2 weeks old, according to the California Department of Corrections. Miner does not have parental rights to her child and is considered a fugitive, corrections officials said.

Eleven years of turning tricks to support a cocaine habit had finally caught up with Cathy, who was ready to make a change but didn't know how. The South-Central Los Angeles resident had lost custody of her two sons and a daughter to foster care, weighed about 98 pounds after losing nearly 100 and had gained notoriety in the legal system after many arrests. Numerous stints in county jails and treatment centers -- along with a few close encounters with death -- had failed to reach her.

On the afternoon before they perform at Staples Center, a group of would-be clowns, jugglers and acrobats -- ages 8 to 13 -- gather at the Hope Street Family Center on the campus of the California Hospital Medical Center in downtown Los Angeles to practice their routine. But Evelyn Ramos, a day short of her 10th birthday, arrives on crutches. It's nothing serious, but she is questionable for the big show.